


Ghost Story

by theroguesgambit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Ghost Stiles, Grieving, M/M, Wolf Derek, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-01
Updated: 2014-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-23 11:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2545244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroguesgambit/pseuds/theroguesgambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Stiles' death, Derek realizes he can still see him, but only in his wolf form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Story

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this fanart](http://halekingsourwolf.tumblr.com/post/101383365952/ninakask-au-stiles-died-and-the-only-way-derek).

Derek has taken to spending time in his wolf form since Stiles’ passing. It’s the only way he can avoid the conversations from the others – the attempted confidences that he’s in no way equipped to respond to, the heart to hearts that only leave him aching in a way he can’t shake.

They expect _words_ from him now, and he can’t explain why. Expect him to bare his soul to them in his grief… or maybe it’s because they think he isn’t grieving, that he can shoulder their weight. Not one of them understands what he and Stiles had been to each other.

He certainly hadn’t, until it wasn’t there anymore.

.-

The first time he sees it, it’s a wisp and a motion at the corner of his eye – a shift of color, a shadow, drifting through the night-dark trees. He turns, lips peeling back, whetted teeth bared in a snarl.

But whatever was there is gone.

.-

The second time, he thinks, is when he’s curled up in a corner at the shell of the Hale house. He’d been planning on renovating, sometime. Stiles had gotten his dad’s help in clearing the paperwork to buy it back from the town before it was bulldozed as a “hazard”… but then he’d just never quite gotten around to it.

Now the loft is just as much a tomb as this place – a hollowed out hole with too many memories and too many ghosts. So he’d retreated here to avoid the words and the eyes of the others. And the memories.

These wounds are less fresh. He can still see Stiles in everything at the loft.

That’s probably why, when he hears familiar, off-key singing echoing through the snowy forest, he whines and shuts his eyes, and does his best to ignore it.

The memories are chasing him, even here.

.-

They’d been on the edge of something, Derek thinks. On the edge for a long time and teetering. Too wary to pull, push or jump in. Too scarred to be sure they could handle the fall.

Now in every breath and every moment, Derek wonders what would have happened if he’d just let go, let them both take that chance, before it had been torn away by a set of bloody claws.

.-

“Well, this is seriously not healthy.”

The voice soothes his out of sleep, like a whisper of wind or bells chiming through a valley, or like Stiles. There’s something decidedly _Stiles_ about the voice, despite how distant and dreamlike it feels.

Derek’s eyes drift open, and Stiles is standing over him. Too pale in the moonlight, dressed in the t-shirt and jeans he’d worn when he died.

A dream then.

Stiles is smiling softly.

“Took forever to track you down, sourwolf.” His hands have slid into the pockets of his jeans. Derek thinks he looks strange - ashy maybe. Like the black of the house is bleeding into him. “Spent three days at the loft, waiting for you to come home before I realized you weren’t going to. My fault, though. Should’ve realized this is where you’d come to get your brood on.”

Derek huffs into his paws, and Stiles shifts, seeming startled.

“Wait… Derek, you can’t see me, right?”

His mind is being cruel tonight. He’d come to this house to forget.

He forces his eyes closed, and tries to dream of older tragedies.

.-

When he wakes up, Stiles is still there. Sitting against the wall, one knee up and the other splayed out, staring out the window at the dawn light with a hint of a smile touching his lips.

For a heartstopping second everything’s ok. Then Stiles’ eyes slide back to Derek’s, he breathes “morning, grumpywolf,” and everything falls apart. Because it’s _Stiles_. Stiles is there, and Derek’s not dreaming anymore. He shifts back so fast his bones actually _ache_ with the effort, and then he’s kneeling, wide-eyed and human and naked in the charred wreck of his living room.

And alone.

Still alone. Stiles is gone.

.-

It takes half a day to shake off the fantasy – because that’s what it was.

Of _course_ that’s what it was.

He’s not even sure how he spends the time. He thinks he forced himself to eat something. Moved some pointless things around. Stared for too long into corners, and tried to keep breathing.

By noon he’s a wreck, jittering out of his skin, and he decides to go on a run. Maybe if he wears himself out he’ll be too tired to dream so vividly.

“—nry the Eighth I am I am, Henry the Eighth I am, I got married to the widow next door—“

The second he finishes his shift he hears it – loud, pointedly obnoxious, undeniably _Stiles_ – coming from almost directly behind him.

His hackles raise and everything in him tenses. The door’s right in front of him; he could just go. He almost convinces himself not to look.

…But how could he _not_ look?

He twists in one smooth motion and sure enough, there’s Stiles. Standing just a few paces behind him, arms crossed almost smugly across his chest as he continues to belt out lyrics in a horrible parody of a British accent.

Stiles is there. It’s the middle of the day, with no dream-remnants to excuse Derek imagining things, and _Stiles is there_. Pulling a Patrick Swayze on him, his mouth stretching into an incredulous grin that lights up his too-pale face (almost _transparent_ face) as he finally stops singing.

“Holy… fuck, Derek. You actually see me.”

Real. This is real. Or if it isn’t real, it’s at least a recurring delusion. As a human, he thinks he would have collapsed in shock at this point. Or maybe launched himself at Stiles, not wasted another second and never, ever let go.

As a wolf, he bares his teeth again, wary, before scenting the air.

Stiles is staring at him in as much apparent shock as he’s feeling.

“But you didn’t see me before. You weren’t, like, hearing me all morning and just totally ignoring me or something, were you?”

He huffs at that, taking a wary step closer. Even in this form, part of him just wants to dive at Stiles, to feel his hand against his fur, to bury himself in his scent…

Except there’s no scent. And judging by how translucent he is… Derek isn’t ready to reach out to Stiles and go straight through him.

Stiles shifts forward and then stalls, seemingly feeling the same way.

“In all those movies,” he breathes quietly, wondering, “the dog can always see the ghost. I mean… not that you’re a dog, just…” He trails off, making to wet his lips. His breaths are coming out shallow, as though the body he no longer possesses is on the verge of a panic. “Sorry, I just, you _see_ me. It’s been weeks since anyone’s seen me.”

He makes a soft sound, starts forward again. And Derek shifts back to his human form and sits there, staring at the spot Stiles had stood until the sun starts to set.

.-

He goes back to town the next day, to check in with the others.

Scott’s a wreck, obviously, but has surrounded himself with his friends and family and is managing better than Derek could have hoped. The Sheriff, Derek half expects to punch him. He’d been the one there that night, after all. The one by Stiles’ side. His wounds had healed in a day. Stiles’ hadn’t.

He isn’t expecting the fierce hug he’s dragged into, or how much he doesn’t hate it, or how much he wants to confess everything – that he’s seen Stiles, that he’s afraid he’s losing his mind, that he’d abandoned Stiles when he was obviously hurting, and is afraid to go back.

What if he’s there again?

What if he’s not?

He manages to keep his mouth shut, to not burden the man further. Manages a few minutes of civility before ducking out again, returning to the loft, and spending the rest of the day trying to work up the courage to shift.

He thinks of confiding in Scott, and dismisses the idea almost as soon as he’s had it. Scott can’t shift like he can, so even if Stiles is real, even if this isn’t just a sign of one loss too many, of Derek’s own encroaching insanity, what point would there be in hurting Scott with something he can’t do anything about?

No, this is his burden… or gift. Nightmare, or wish come true.

Who can even tell anymore?

“I don’t know if you’re real,” he murmurs to the ceiling. “I don’t know what it means if you are.”

When he finally shifts, Stiles is next to him. Lying on his side, watching Derek with fond eyes, a lopsided lilt to his smile.

“I don’t know either," he says. "Am I real if I only exist to one person?”

He sounds sad, despite the soft tilt of his lips, and Derek wonders if he’d been there today and seen Scott, his dad. Wonders if maybe a little of that sadness is for Derek. For the words they can’t say now, the things they’d held back on being to each other and now won’t ever have the chance to.

He lets out a soft sound and, without thinking, noses forward.

Stiles isn’t _there_ , but Derek doesn’t go straight through him either. There’s a pressure, an awareness, that has him stopping against something almost tangible. Stiles lets out a surprised huff of air, like he feels it too. Not quite touching, not quite not. Derek knows he could push through it if he wanted, ignore the awareness of a _presence_ there against him. Instead, he settles, breathing into the space where Stiles’ collar should be.

Stiles lets out a startled laugh.

“And I thought our conversations were one sided before,” he breathes, and Derek snuffs, and Stiles buries his face against Derek’s fur.

It feels like standing outside a frost-covered window, watching a fire crackling inside. Like mist over the forest, or a waning moon, or an ashen house, waiting in vain to be rebuilt.

But it feels like not being alone.

And as Stiles breathes softly against him, feigning at life out of habit, Derek lets himself pretend for a few moments that’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come find me on Tumblr](http://halekingsourwolf.tumblr.com)


End file.
